<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Dying is Easy, Living is Harder by Imperial_Creecher</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234859">Dying is Easy, Living is Harder</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imperial_Creecher/pseuds/Imperial_Creecher'>Imperial_Creecher</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DC Comics</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Arkham Asylum, Batman - Freeform, DC comics - Freeform, Emotional Hurt, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, Temporary Character Death, The Author Regrets Everything, you’ve been warned</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 22:03:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>723</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27234859</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imperial_Creecher/pseuds/Imperial_Creecher</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All this torment seemed like it would be the worst feeling she had ever experienced in all her life, but was it? No, barely even close. </p><p>(An angsty Drabble about Selina Kyle and her greatest pain)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Dying is Easy, Living is Harder</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Narrowly surviving death was such a rare thing, something terrifying and almost impossible for it to happen more than once, let alone eight times. Eight terrifying, confusing lapses between reality and life, and the other side. It wasn’t even the other side, it was like floating in limbo, surrounded by deafening silence, walls closing in, and nothing but your own thoughts. All of this was the perfect recipe to make Selina Kyle shatter her own walls, crumble down in her mind and finally face the facts she hid behind her confidence.</p><p>She couldn’t even remember the first time it happened, or why. It could have been falling from a skyscraper after a fight, or one of Joker’s buzzers being far too potent. From what she observed from her fellow inmates in the past, they counted her as lucky, as if it was a painless experience for her. But it wasn’t like how the Joker could fall into a vat and come out with a sadistic grin and ringing laugh, or even like Poison Ivy crawling out from under rubble and gradually healing from the injuries. It felt like sleeping wide-awake, nothing but darkness that seemed to last days or seconds, where all she could do was go over her every mistake, tearing herself apart until she couldn’t face it anymore...and even then she was trapped until she’d wake up in a cold sweat, shaking and disoriented.</p><p>All this torment seemed like it would be the worst feeling she had ever experienced in all her life, but was it? No, barely even close. If she closed her eyes, she could replay in her mind the worst moment she’d experienced, what started the gut wrenching life she’d begun to accept as the new normal.</p><p>Her whole life was one long, winding road, not nearly wide enough for anyone else to walk on, and if they tried, she had learned that pushing them off the path was the smartest move. It was always the same, someone got cold feet with a heist, they were on different paths in life, etc., but the truth is she never truly cared for those people. Did they provide a bit of entertainment or companionship? Maybe, but she didn’t invest her time and care into them. </p><p>And then there was Batman.</p><p>Batman, the dark knight of an unholy city, a beacon of hope for everyone, no matter their social standing. She’d seen him let his facade slip enough to provide comfort to a scared child, to have mercy on a desperate crook, and even extend a helping hand to someone that called him an enemy. Just like her. Only thing was, Batman was human, he had compassion and hope despite his grim life, but even he could only trust and hope for someone so many times. </p><p>How many times had she broken his trust just to get a material object or revenge? How many times had she shredded his heart with biting words or a kick to the gut. If she could only count them out, and make herself pay for each and every one of those times, she might feel a little less lost and trapped in her own undoing.</p><p>“I can’t trust you again Selina,” she heard him say in her brain for the thousandth time that day. “You’ve broken my trust and the law too many times, and you never learn your lesson. Even if you reformed from your crimes and became an honest woman....I’m only human Selina, I can’t do that anymore.”</p><p>Losing the one person you went back to every time, your lifeline, the feeling was indescribably painful. If she could change the past, she wouldn’t have taken so many risks and done so many selfish things, but that was the easy way out. Selina refused to take the easy way out, not anymore, she would live with her mistakes and pay her debt once and for all.</p><p>Was death painful? Yes, and some nights she woke up from awful nightmares at the thought of it. But, losing the trust of the one person she loved? Being alone again in a large, cold world with no one to count on? Waking up every day to the pain that she hurt him? That was harder than death, no matter how many times she’d faced it.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>